On 4 June 1945, Sir Alfred Webb-Johnson, the President of the Royal College of Surgeons of England, came to Glasgow to receive the Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Faculty of Physicians and Surgeons (RFPSG).' The Royal Faculty was an ancient medical licensing body whose office bearers and Fellows had traditionally made up the majority of the clinical elite in the two main local teaching hospita...

These were the words uttered by Dr A G Malcolm, the Orator of the day, during his opening lecture to The Belfast Medical School, at a time when the General Hospital was in Frederick Street. There was no mention of women, as there were none in the audience. The 1850’s were a low point for women in the history of Homo sapiens. A point from which some have managed to find the road back to the summ...

BOOK

Fire is a rare but potentially disastrous operating room misadventure. In this article, the authors describe the elements of operating room fires and present an illustrative case. The risk of fire can be minimized when the operating room team understands the interactions among the three sides of the classic fire triangle: oxidizers, fuels, and ignition sources. Lists of fire prevention techniqu...

This article is one of ten reviews selected from the Annual Update in Intensive Care and Emergency medicine 2016. Other selected articles can be found online at http://www.biomedcentral.com/collections/annualupdate2016. Further information about the Annual Update in Intensive Care and Emergency Medicine is available from http://www.springer.com/series/8901.